Suffragettes Disowned

1916

Atlantic City, N. J., Sept. 6. — The National American Woman Suffrage Association today decided to continue its policy of favoring both National and State legislation to bring about equal rights for women.

Virtually all the speakers declared for strict neutrality in the Presidential campaign and to continue the non-partisan efforts of the association to bring about equal suffrage throughout the United States.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 12, 1916, p. 6.

Prohibition and Woman Suffrage

1916

Vancouver, B. C., Sept. 15. — On the face of incomplete returns available today from yesterday's general election in British Columbia, prohibition had a majority of more than 5000 out of a total of 25,000 votes. Woman suffrage apparently carried in every district.

Will Women Abandon Love?

1910

Gertrude Atherton, the novelist, has been writing for Harper's Bazar on "The Woman in Love." In her first two papers Mrs. Atherton discusses those women in history whose love episodes have been the most striking thing about them. In her third paper, however, not yet published, she makes some predictions concerning the place that love will take in the future.

Mrs. Atherton does not go so far as Mrs. Belmont, who predicts that there will be a war between the sexes, due to the fact that men will not give women the suffrage. Mrs. Atherton believes and states, however, that from now on the love element will be a far less vital thing in women's lives than it has been heretofore. She thinks that the broadening out of feminine interests, the entrance of women into new fields, the intellectual development of women, are all factors which will fill women's lives to the comparative exclusion of that other factor which heretofore has been supposed to be "her whole existence."


The Busy Ant

Ants have six ears, which are located at about the queerest places imaginable — the legs. The ants are deaf to all sounds made by the vibration of the air, but detect the slightest possible vibrations of solid matter. This is supposed to be to their advantage. So sensitive are their feet that they can detect the drop of a small birdshot dropped on a table from a height of six inches and about 14 feet distant from an artificial nest placed at the other end of the table. The ant also has an elaborate array of noses.

No Equal Suffrage Movement in France After the American Fashion

1920

By Mme. Clemenceau-Jacquemaire, in New York Times

So far as I have been able to observe, there is no equal suffrage movement in France in the sense that you in America regard a movement. From earliest times the women in France have always held a high position in the community. They have taken an active part in business projects, and the professions have always been open to them. They have been prominent in literature, science, and art. Indirectly they have exerted great influence on the political life of the country. Consequently there has been no pronounced movement for equal rights in France such as has been started elsewhere.

The women of France are not anxious to vote or to be elected to office. Therefore I am not of the opinion that suffrage will gain headway in my country. Nevertheless I am watching with great interest the progress of the women of other countries. We admire your progressiveness and are interested in the experiment of sending women to congress, of giving them seats on the bench. This is, of course, in line with your advancement and liberal ideas. But our own traditions, our social and racial conditions, are very different.

I find no cause for anxiety regarding the competition of the sexes in business. Women who had taken men's jobs on the outbreak of the war are gladly relinquishing them, and peace adjustment is coming without bitterness.

Was it not Ellen Key who avowed that even if the suffragist was striving to be free she was making a mistake if she thought the vote would free her from the limitation of nature? Women cannot pass beyond those limits without interfering with the rights of nature and the potential child. Woman, of course, has a right to avoid marriage, and to allow herself to be turned into a third sex, provided she finds in this her greatest happiness. But when all is told, motherhood is the central factor of existence for most women.

Farmer Radford on Woman Suffrage

1915

The home is the greatest contribution of women to the world, and the hearthstone is her throne. Our social structure is built around her, and social righteousness is in her charge.

Her beautiful life lights the skies of hope and her refinement is the charm of twentieth century civilization. Her graces and her power are the cumulative products of generations of queenly conquest, and her crown of exalted womanhood is jeweled with the wisdom of saintly mothers. She has been a great factor in the glory of our country, and her noble achievements should not be marred or her hallowed influence blighted by the coarser duties of citizenship.

American chivalry should never permit her to bear the burdens of defending and maintaining government, but should preserve her unsullied from the allied influences of politics, and protect her from the weighty responsibilities of the sordid affairs of life that will crush her ideals and lower her standards.

The motherhood of the farm is our inspiration, she is the guardian of our domestic welfare and a guide to a higher life, but directing the affairs of government is not within woman's sphere, and political gossip would cause her to neglect the home, forget to mend our clothes and burn the biscuits.

—New Oxford Item, New Oxford, Pennsylvania, Jan. 28, 1915.

West Virginia's Vote Cheers Suffrage Head

1920

"The Struggle Is Over," Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt Declares.

NEW YORK, N.Y., March 18. — "Suffrage is won. The words are simple, but they thrill as few words do or can." This was the encouraging conclusion of Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, in a statement issued here on receipt of news that the West Virginia Senate had ratified the Federal suffrage amendment by a vote of 15 to 14. With West Virginia won and the Washington and Delaware legislatures meeting soon in special session, the opinion expressed at headquarters was that "the struggle is over."

"People who have followed the course of woman suffrage from the outside with indifference or small understanding of what has been at stake," said Mrs. Catt, "will have no comprehension of the real message which the West Virginia victory carries to women. To us it means that the nation is won, that the seventy-five year struggle is over, that the women of America are enfranchised women.

"And now whatever comes out of granting the suffrage to women, it is safe to predict that it will never be responsible for any offering to the general welfare except those things which have been well considered and intelligently endorsed."

When Ma is Sick (poetry and humor)

1917

When Ma is Sick

When Ma is sick she pegs away;
She's quiet, though, not much t' say.
She goes right on adoin' things,
An' sometimes laughs, or even sings.
She says she don't feel extra well,
But then it's just a kind o' spell.
She'll be all right tomorrow sure,
A good old sleep will be the cure.
An' Pa, he sniffs an' makes no kick,
For women folks is always sick.
An' Ma, she smiles, lets on she' glad—
When Ma is sick it ain't so bad.

—Scoville Bulletin.


Why Is It?

That a legless man can "put his foot in it?"
That persons who are "consumed by curiosity" still survive?
That frequently a sinking fund is used to meet a floating debt?
That straining the voice is not the proper way to make it clearer?
That we speak of a stream running dry when the only way it can run is wet?
That wives should expect their husbands to foot the bills without kicking?


Not a Personal Matter

The queen of Holland isn't quite sure that she approves of suffrage for women. But, of course, queens don't need it. — Cleveland Plain Dealer.


Like Human Engine

A locomotive may be all right in the long run, but at that it frequently has to take water.


One cannot know everything. — Horace.

Woman Has Personal Invitation to Anti-Suffrage Meeting

Pennsylvania, 1915

ANTI-SUFFRAGE MEETING

Mrs. O'Neal to Attend Session in Philadelphia on Saturday.

Mrs. Walter H. O'Neal left for Philadelphia on Thursday to attend, by a personal invitation from Mrs. Horace Brock, State Chairman, a conference of women, opposed to the granting of suffrage to women. The meeting will be at the home of Mrs. Brock, 1920 Spruce street, on Friday morning. Mrs. A. J. George, of Boston, will be one of the speakers. After the meeting Mrs. Brock will serve a luncheon to the guests.

—Adams County News, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, January 16, 1915, page 5.


Folly of Profanity

Although the use of some expletives decently and in order may often be justified, it is something we should all try to avoid. Thoroughly well balanced men and women never let their nerves become wrought up to a pitch where swearing is necessary. They appreciate that no matter how good scientific reasons there may be for expletives their use is a confession of weakness.


Certainly Suggestive

Perhaps the old fellow who first pointed out that a man's home is his castle had in mind the way it's almost constantly beleaguered by persons wishing to sell you brooms, potatoes and other commodities that you don't want any more of than you already have. — Columbus (Ohio) Journal.


Amended the Author

Little Lola had been given a short poem to commit to memory by her teacher. In it these lines occurred: "Sail on, ye mariners, the night is gone." Later when requested to repeat the poem, she rendered the lines thus: "Sail on, ye married men, the light is gone."